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When Howlin' Wolf romped through "Wang Dang Doodle" or thundered in "Three Hundred Pounds of Joy," the snarling guitar that accompanied him belonged to one of the greatest bluesmen to pick up the instrument: Hubert Sumlin. The cry of Sumlin's guitar — riffing hard one moment, sighing poetically the next — helped define Wolf's sound, even if Sumlin never attained a fraction of the fame of his celebrated boss. In the wake of Sumlin's death Sunday at age 80, of heart failure in Wayne, N.J., Chicago blues musicians tried to put his outsized contributions in focus. "He's the one that shaped that Howlin' Wolf sound," said...

Related "Hubert Sumlin" Articles

When Howlin' Wolf romped through "Wang Dang Doodle" or thundered in "Three Hundred Pounds of Joy," the snarling guitar that accompanied him belonged to one of the greatest bluesmen to pick up the instrument: Hubert Sumlin.
The cry...